The Four Loko question: Is mixing caffeine and alcohol safe?

The New York Times reports on health concerns associated with mixing caffeine and alcohol today, concluding that no one really agrees on whether that’s a dangerous combination.

That particular recipe has come under scrutiny lately primarily because of Four Loko, a caffeinated malt beverage blamed for sickening several young people across the country recently.

The Food and Drug Administration is deciding if the drinks are safe, with some kind of decisive announcement expected Wednesday. In the meantime, the New York Times reports:

Although there is little research on the effects of mixing caffeine and alcohol, several studies have suggested that people get more intoxicated and engage in riskier behavior when they drink the combination beverages than when they drink alcohol alone. Caffeine masks the effects of alcohol, doctors say, tricking users into believing they can keep drinking well past the point of drunkenness.

Phusion Projects, which makes Four Loko, has said that drinking premixed alcohol and caffeine is no different from drinking a few glasses of wine with dinner and having coffee afterward. But Dr. Mary Claire O’Brien, a professor of emergency medicine at Wake Forest University, warned the F.D.A. last year that the combination was dangerous. Dr. O’Brien said that ingesting both substances at the same time had a much more potent effect than either one by itself.

“There’s a particular interaction that goes on in the brain when they are consumed simultaneously,” she said. “The addition of the caffeine impairs the ability of the drinker to tell when they’re drunk. What is the level at which it becomes dangerous? We don’t know that, and until we can figure it out, the answer is that no level is safe.”

Chicago-based Phusion Projects, the makers of Four Loko, say they’re cooperating with governmental action, but that they don’t agree with allegations that their product isn’t safe. In this seattlepi.com story, the company said:

“We still believe that combining caffeine and alcohol is safe – if that weren’t the case, Irish coffees and rum and colas would be under scrutiny as well. But we want our company to be known for cooperation and collaboration, not controversy.”